Mini Project #2: Family Room Plastering

So when we first got the house, we thought the Family room would be one of the first rooms to be done and move our furniture into as we moved into the house. BUT...as I'm sure all homeowners know from experience, things never quite go as you planned in your head!

This is what the Family room (1st room to the left as you enter the house) looked like when we got the house.

The very first thing we did (before we even moved in) was tear down the heavy curtains and curtain rods. This was actually no easy feat, as the rods were bolted into the wall in such a way that on several occasions, there was a gaping hole left in the wall after the rods came out. FUN!! So there was definitely a lot of putty used in this room.

The second thing we did was tear down the wood paneling wall and all the wood trim around the floor. We didn't particularly care for the wood paneling look, and the trim had marker written on it and holes drilled into a lot of the doorway due to some sort of exercise bar contraption (another interesting quirk of the house).

The next thing was to see if the carpets could be salvaged. After moving the interesting chairs left behind (in particular the goldish "recliner" that plugged into the wall), we noticed some rust stains, but my mom did a SUPER job in getting a carpet cleaner machine and making it look almost new!

Then it was time to move into the house, and although we hadn't originally planned it this way, the family room ended up being the throw room for everything that didn't have a home (as well as the kitchen stuff we didn't want to move in quite yet). We didn't get a chance to paint that room because we still needed to put up drywall, so we decided to leave it for storage and finish it as soon as the kitchen was done. (Little did we know how long the kitchen would take!)

Somewhere in the midst of the kitchen project we managed to get something done with this family room, thanks to one of our good friend's superior knowledge of plastering!

Nothing some plastering tape and putty can't fix!

Showing off his hard work

Thanks to our friend, the wall is pretty much ready for painting - now we just have to decide what color! Another thing to consider was this new wall is smooth, while the other walls (and most of our house) has a swirl pattern in the plaster. Another one of our friends suggested we use that wall as our "accent" wall in the room and paint it a different color than the other walls. We're still considering this, as I was thinking it might be neat to have some navy in this room, but thought an entirely navy room might be too much!

While we're eagerly anticipating painting and finishing this room, it has taken a backseat to our kitchen project, so until that gets finished, it's still our storage room!